The Contribution of Research to Social Change

1. The Contribution of Research to Social Change Diane Ross, Associate Professor Otterbein University Westerville, Ohio USA

2. Essential Questions for the week • How does your interest in peace and social justice move your areas of inquiry? • How is this question situated in the field of “Peace Research” as defined by Galtung and others? • How can we work in community to support each other’s areas of inquiry? • How does this question move your actions in creating a world that is more peaceful and just?

3. Assessments • Before (pre-assessment) • Research survey and personal goals • During (formative assessment) • Development of your personal question • Butcher block paper- Gallery Walk • Action Research Plan (formative assessment) • Appreciative Inquiry Protocol (formative assessment) • Post- assessment • Research proposal • Presentation • Turn in a digital copy by email- before a grade is turned in • Will support your research for up to 30 years

4. How we will get there.... Survey Previous Research Foundation- Monday Begin to formulate your own personal research agenda Introduce Research Paradigms Gallery Walk of Critical Feedback Introduce Peace Research/ Galtung theory of Peace Research Introduce Action Research Paradigm- Tuesday Participate in a Action Research Activity Introduce Appreciative Inquiry Paradigm- Wednesday Participate in Appreciative Inquiry Activity Introduce structure of paper and research tools (including online databases)- Thursday Participate in Critical Colleague Activity- Friday Share personal research protocol with the class/ Graded assignment

5. How do I situate myself as a peace researcher? • Mom • Teacher • Researcher • Scholar • Peace Activist • Your Servant Leader this week

8. Area of Inquiry • Dissertation: How do I understand my role in preparing teachers who teach for peace and social justice • Research Methodology- Heuristics; an autobiographical phenomenological method, to explore this issue. • Conclusions: Middle childhood teacher educators must spend their own lives acquiring dispositions to practice social justice and equity if the pre-service educators they instruct are to have any possibility of acquiring these dispositions themselves. • Acquiring Cultural Consciousness through Field Experiences in “Developing Countries”: A Case Study in Kampala, Uganda • Research Methodology- Qualitative Case Study- personal journals, student journals, interviews, observations • Ross, D. A. (2008), "Culturally competent and socio-politically conscious teaching: A teacher educator works to model the journey to critical cultural competence". International Journal of Multicultural Education, Vol 10, No 1. • Ross, D. A.  & Wicks, M.  (2007 winter) "Making authentic service learning alive in middle level classrooms".  Ohio Middle School Association. • Ross, D.A. (2005, spring). "Project SAIL (Summer academy for integrated learning): A college/school partnership for middle school reform".  Ohio Middle School Journal: Columbus, Ohio. • Ross, D. A., & Lehr, L. (2000, May). "Educators and the paradigmatic struggle in teaching and learning in a digital technology reality: An interpretive study"  Research Center for Educational Technology (RCET).  Kent, Ohio 

9. How do you situate yourself as a researcher Human knot

10. Inner outer Circle of sharing

11. What is research?

12. What is research • Inquiry • collaborative • Activity • Stating a hypothesis • Testing hypothesis • Looking for patterns • Developing relationships that illustrate behaviors • Getting in contact with subject • Lab • Extension of your original thoughts • Disprove the null

13. Research is an organized studywith methodical investigation into a subject in order to discover facts, to establish or revise a theory, or to develop a plan of action basedon the facts discovered

14. What are your experiences with research?

15. Research is a frame of mind….a perspective that people take toward objects and activities (Bogdan and Biklen 1992: 223)

16. Have you felt good about your experiences?

17. Forming personal research questions…

18. One of the most important things a change agent does it to articulate the questions…

19. What are the most pressing questions that you have around the issues of peace and Social justice?

20. Because all change processes begin with framing an issue and collecting data, we become aware that in the very act of doing these preliminary activities, we are socially constructing our future through choices we make and dialogue we use.

21. 1 2 3 What are your three top questions of inquiry?

22. It is through language that we create the world, because it is nothing until we describe it. And when we describe it, we create distinctions that govern our actions. To put it another way, we do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe…. Joseph Jaworski, Synchronicity

23. what is your biggest question of inquiry currently?

24. Inquiry and change are not separate, but are simultaneous. Inquiry is intervention. The seeds of change – the things people think and talk about, discover and learn, and that inform dialogue and inspire images of the future- are implicit in the very first questions that we ask.

25. Why are you interested in this question

26. We come to know ourselves by bringing to consciousness the process by which our view points are formed…

27. What do you already know about this question

28. You will learn what you already know. You need to learn how to generalize significantly what you know.

29. Write one question of inquiry that you currently have on butcher block paper and hang this on the wall

30. We can undress our souls with the pen…..

31. Critical Colleagues • Pose one question under each research question

32. Research Paradigms

33. Social Research disciplines…. anthropology archaeology comparative musicology communication studies cultural studies Demography Economics History human geography international development international relations linguistics, media studies, philology political science psychology (at least in part) social work social policy sociology

34. Epistemologies and Ontologies How we see the world and how we come to know…. Positivism Quantitative Post-Positivism Constructive Qualitative Perspective The knower and the known cannot be separated Interpretation Gap between rich and poor No single reality Knowledge is conjectural Rationalism Science Stable Consistent Coherent Rising Nuclear Age Global threat to the environment Participant Observer Outsider/ Observer Ex. Adapting visual methods: Action Research with Kampala Street Children Ex, Quantitative Research Provides Compelling Evidence for Success of Participatory Development Programme in Uganda

35. Research Processes Social Research Positivist and/or Post-positivist “Soft Sciences” Scientific Research Positivist “Hard Sciences” Anthropology Chemistry Biology Mathematics Psychology Cultural Studies Ex: Psychosocial Vulnerability and Resilience Measures For National-Level Monitoring of Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children Ex: Alcohol Consumption in Uganda

36. Research Process: Systematic Interaction Between Theories and Data Quantitative Methods What/ Where/ When Qualitative Methods Why/ How PersonalExperiences Smaller number of attributes across many cases Concerned with understanding the meaning of social phenomena Larger number of attributes across relatively few cases Attempts to quantify social phenomena Collects and analyzes numerical data Interpretation over quantification Journals Diaries Structured Interview Content Analysis Survey Focus Groups Participant observation Questionnaire StructuredObservation Secondary Analysis Semi/Un structured Interviews Text -Based Data

37. Research Post-Positivist Positivist Social Sciences Qualitative Phenomenology Ethnography Value orientation Feminist Critical Constructivist Action Research Appreciative Inquiry Constructivist with a Value Orientation for Peace Peace Research

38. To move towards social justice, one must be in a constant state of social research.

39. What questions can you ask to help move this person forward and to help clarify their question….? Gallery Walk….

40. Peace Research

41. Peace research how would you define it • Networking using technology • Spreading data information in order to inform and empower • Finding a balance between theory and reality • Applying different methods in research • Doing, interdisciplinary, inter ideological, international thinking, civilization, dialogic • Dynamic and active • Insighting change • contextual • Questions assumptions • Dangerous to repeat prior views • Promoting universal access to information • Understanding the world to facilitate change • Analyzing the topic and the self • Having an end goal which is an avoidance of violence • Build upon the old to build the new

42. Social Justice and Research….Basic premise for the class… Social justice is not static or timeless. The theory of justice is understood as an attempt to understand what a society’s actions, practices, and norms mean and to elucidate what a community’s shared understandings are so that they are agreed upon principles of social justice.

43. Elements of Peace Research Dialogic Explicit value Inter-disciplinary…..Intra….Trans-disciplinary Inter-national….Intra…..Trans-national…. Holistic Global

44. Peace studies are……..Johan Galtung (2005, Peace: A Ten Point Primer) Empirical Critical Constructive (I would say… focused on change…) Paradigm of Praxis Transformative Emancipatory

45. Empirical dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. scientific statements are subject to and derived from our experiences or observations Construct hypotheses Compare data and hypotheses

46. Critical Ethical Politically empowering Compare data with values related to peace Data must be explicit Comparison carried out with rigor Human behavior critics

47. Constructive studies • Do not shy away from making recommendations • Adequate reasoning • Value premises • Adequate data • Explicit values • Well tested theories

48. …rejects the notion of researcher neutrality, understanding that the most active researcher is often one who has most at stake in resolving a problematic situation.

49. Response to class…..dross@otterbein.edu What caused you to “show up” today? What new learnings did you acquire today? What questions do you have after today? What hopes do you have for this class time together? This time together will be successful if…

50. Action Research definition and examples: Readings Tonight